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When I was born on Thursday, May 8, 1969, my parents named me George Paul Wood. Ever since, they have called me George. My sister calls me George. My wife calls me George. My extended family calls me George. My friends and colleagues call me George. And that’s the way I like. It is, after all, my name. But sometimes, people at church call me Pastor. Listen, if you’re my friend, please don’t call me Pastor. 

There are several reasons why I don’t like to be called Pastor. One, it makes me feel old. Two, it makes me feel like I ought to be wearing a clerical collar and uttering profound mysteries about God. But I hate wearing black, and while I like talking about God, very little that I say about him ever rises to the level of the profound or the mysterious. And three, I don’t call you by your spiritual gift, so why should you call me by mine? 

In order to explain that last reason, I need to quote Romans 12.4-8: 

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. 

With these words, Paul lays out a vision of church in which every member makes a valuable contribution to the life of the community. Keep two things in mind: First, each person’s contribution is different. Just as one body has many parts, so one church has many ministers. Some of the ministers have the spiritual gift of pastoring, but others of prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing generously, leading, and showing mercy. Second, each person’s contribution is equally valuable. Pastors may stand in the spotlight on Sundays, but behind the scenes and throughout the week, others are also doing the work of ministry. 

And that’s the basic reason I don’t like being called Pastor. The title, which is sincerely intended as a form of respect, ends up privileging one spiritual gift over others, mine over yours. I may be Pastor George, but you’re just as equally Prophet Peter or Serving Steve or Teaching Theresa or Encouraging Eve or Contributing Ken or Merciful Marianne. So if you’re going to give me a title, why can’t I give you one too?  

Through Christ, we’re all equal but differently gifted children in God’s family. Brothers and sisters call each other by their first names, the names their Heavenly Father gave them. Mine’s George. What’s yours?

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Brad Paisley sings a funny sung about alcohol that begins with these words: 

I can make anybody pretty.
I can make you believe any lie.
I can make you pick a fight with somebody twice your size. 

Actually, now that I read those lyrics, they’re not so much funny as just plain sad. Drunkenness makes people believe and do really stupid things. 

Romans 12.3 doesn’t address the baleful consequences of alcohol consumption. In fact, it doesn’t mention alcohol at all. But it talks about “sober judgment,” and the easiest way to think about sober judgment is by contrast with “beer goggles.” 

Perhaps you’ve never heard of beer goggles. I hadn’t either until friends explained that they’re what you put on when you drink too much. To the young man with beer goggles, every girl looks pretty, no matter how homely; every idea sounds like a good one, no matter how stupid; and every course of action is doable, no matter how dangerous. Looking at the world through beer-goggled eyes is a fool’s errand, but lots of young men and women (not to mention some older ones) still do it. And boy, do they suffer the consequences. 

What Paul recommends—or, rather, commands—is sobriety. As he writes in Romans 12.3, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” 

Sobriety is not the same thing as alcohol-free, although being free of alcohol is a good place to start. Some people wear beer goggles because they drink too much beer. But some people believe that anybody is pretty, any lie is true, and any fight can be won even when no alcohol has touched their lips. Sobriety, you see, is the spiritual and moral virtue of reality-centeredness long before it is a measurement of blood alcohol level. 

So, the first thing truly sober people do is take a realistic assessment of themselves. “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought” is the negative aspect of this assessment. When the serpent tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he seduced them into disregarding this negative. “You will be like God,” he said in Genesis 3.5. Adam and Eve put their beer goggles on and we’ve been wandering around like drunken sinners ever since. Listen, there’s only one God, and you’re not him. Neither am I. Sobriety starts with this basic fact. 

But there’s a positive aspect to this assessment too. Paul writes about thinking of yourself “in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” In verses 4-8, he lists a wide variety of spiritual gifts that God has bestowed on his people. You and I may not be God, but we’re not nobodies either. Rather, in Christ, we’re somebodies whom God values enough to save and use for his best purposes.

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During my first year of graduate school, I read A Black Theology of Liberation by James H. Cone. For me—a conservative, white, suburban kid—reading Cone’s book was an unsettling experience. Cone thought about God and society very differently than I did. Indeed, he argued that my theological methodology and conclusions served racist purposes. One of the most formative moments in my theological education happened when I stopped and asked myself whether he was right. 

Why am I telling you about my unsettling experience? It’s not because I came to agree with Cone’s specific conclusions about white theologians. In my opinion, his conclusions were driven more by quasi-Marxist assumptions than by biblical imperatives. On the other hand, Cone was on to something. Sometimes, not always, but nevertheless all too often, we let our cultural assumptions shape our theology rather than the other way around. 

An interesting case study of this tendency can be found in the September 18^th cover story of Time magazine: “Does God Want You to Be Rich?” For some well-known television preachers, the answer is undoubtedly yes. And they have a point. I sincerely doubt that God wants anyone to be poor. That’s why the Bible contains so many commands to be generous to the poor and to do justice by them. But is the so-called “prosperity gospel” really biblical? Or is it, as the article suggests, “the latest lurch in Protestantism's ongoing descent into full-blown American materialism”? Do we emphasize what the Bible teaches us about prosperity because we—as a nation—are so rich, and we want to justify our lifestyles? Perhaps. I certainly like reading what the Bible says about God blessing me more than I like reading about (or actually putting into practice) what the Bible says about helping the poor. 

The problem is that our culture’s way of thinking easily becomes our way of thinking. And then we—Christians, anyway—find creative ways to read our way of thinking onto the pages of the Bible. The end result is that we deceive ourselves into thinking we’ve acted biblically about some issue when in fact all we’ve done is found those verses in the Bible that validate our preconceived notions about God and society. 

Romans 12.1 talks about offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God. Romans 12.2 goes on to explain how that living sacrifice applies to our minds: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” 

The purpose of sound thinking is godly living. In order to live a godly life, we need to think like him, to let his thoughts become our thoughts. That can only happen when we are alert to the subtle ways in our which our thinking about God conforms to our social prejudices, rather than our society being transformed by what the Bible teaches us about God.

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In August 1991, I traveled to the Qinghai Province in northwestern China with my family. We visited various cities where my missionary grandparents had planted churches prior to the Communist Revolution of 1949. While in the city of Xining, I saw a butcher kill a goat on the sidewalk in front of his store. Until then, I’d never seen a butcher at work. But now I had, and it gave me a new perspective on Romans 12.1. Here’s what Paul writes: 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 

The work of a priest and the work of a butcher are very different. In the Old Testament, a priest killed an animal as a sacrifice to God. A butcher, by contrast, kills an animal in order to sell its meat to customers. The ends a priest and a butcher pursue may differ, but the means to those ends are the same. Either way, as sacrifice or meat, the animal must be killed. 

But the necessary death of a sacrificial animal renders Paul’s remarks oxymoronic. How can something be a “living sacrifice”? It’s helpful to remember that Paul is speaking metaphorically here. He’s talking about us, not animals, although he uses the language of sacrificial animals to make an important point about us. 

That point can best be illustrated by Pastor Mung, a remarkable Christian leader I met in Xining. Pastor Mung had been a colleague of my grandparents. He was an exceptionally gifted pastor and evangelist. Because my grandparents were American citizens, they fled the Communist Revolution and returned stateside. But as a Chinese national, Pastor Mung had no place to go. 

The Communists were not kind to Chinese Christians. They viewed them as ideologues of the non-Communist West. So, the Communists confiscated Pastor Mung’s church buildings, they banned him from holding meetings, they imprisoned him, and even when they paroled him, they curtailed his ability to find good housing and a job. Throughout those very hard years, he soldiered on, ministering to his congregation in secret, encouraging small handfuls of believers through home visits. 

Pastor Mung lived sacrificially. I’m sure he could have said a few words or performed a few actions that would have somewhat alleviated his situation. But before God, in his conscience, he knew that he could not compromise his calling. He subordinated his own interests to the greater interests of the kingdom of God. 

Pastor Mung’s living sacrifice was effective. When I met him in 1991, the Communists had relaxed their attitudes, restored his church buildings, allowed him to openly gather a congregation, and even paid him a retirement pension. (He was in his early 80s at the time. He died a few years ago.) Most importantly, nearly 10,000 people had become baptized members of his church. 

In the Old Testament, a priest killed an animal, and it provided atonement for a time. On the streets of Xining, a butcher killed a goat, and it fed people for a meal. But Pastor Mung’s ministry will stretch throughout eternity, as only living sacrifices can do.

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Today, I would like to meditate with you on ten words from Romans 12.1: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy….” 

Whenever you read the word therefore in Scripture, you should ask what it’s there for. In Romans 12.1, therefore connects religion and ethics. According to Gordon Fee, religion in the New Testament is grace, while ethics is gratitude. Romans 1-11 is a powerful exposition of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. Romans 12-15 is an equally powerful exposition of the spiritual and moral work of the justified.  

In the Christian worldview, the relationship between religion and ethics is never either/or, but always both/and. Grace begets gratitude. Faith works. 

Therefore is a connecting term. In deductive logic, it links the premises of an argument to a sound and valid conclusion. For example: 

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal. 

Is that how Romans 12.1 connects religion and ethics? Does Paul provide a logical syllogism showing why the proper conclusion to grace is gratitude? Or that the premise of works is faith? 

Perhaps, although it’s difficult to pick out what precisely that syllogism might be. In my opinion, therefore in Romans 12.1 is less logical than psychological. Notice that Paul says, “Therefore, I urge you…,” not, “Therefore, the sound and valid conclusion is….” The connection between religion and ethics is personal, not philosophical. Ethics arises out of a specific kind of relationship to God. Notice that Paul says, “I urge you in view of God’s mercy.” Religion and ethics go together because grace and gratitude go together. 

Did you know, in fact, that grace and gratitude derive from the same Latin word, gratia, meaning “grace” or “favor”? Gratitude, to coin a phrase, means having a “graced attitude.” Healthy individuals respond to a favor with thanks. When that favor is forgiveness for an offense, the gratitude grows in proportion to the enormity of the sin that has been forgiven. 

In Matthew 18.21-35, Jesus tells the parable of a man who is forgiven by his creditor of a great debt but nonetheless turns right around and tries to niggle pennies out of his own debtor. He gets caught in the act and thrown into jail. “Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” the creditor asks. The debtor in Jesus’ parable didn’t understand the personal connection between religion and ethics. He didn’t realize that God’s goodness flows to you (that’s religion) and then through you (that’s ethics). He didn’t have a graced attitude. 

But a graced attitude doesn’t just mean doing the right thing. It means doing the right thing with the right motivation. Had the debtor in Jesus’ parable forgiven his own debtor out of begrudging obligation to his own creditor, he still would have missed the point. Grace doesn’t entail duty. It entails opportunity. We don’t have to forgive others or do them good works. We get to. 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy to __________. I’ll let your graced attitude fill in that blank.

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About halfway up the 286 spiraling stone steps of the Oleviste Church tower, I began to wonder whether the view it afforded of Tallinn, Estonia, was really worth the heart-pumping, lung-burning, knee-buckling effort. Construction on the Oleviste Church began in the 13^th Century. At one time, it was the tallest building in Europe. And the only way to the top was one unevenly sized, medieval stair at a time. 

I thought about the Oleviste Church tower when I read Romans 11.33-36. Romans is Paul’s most theologically systematic and rigorously argued letter. About halfway through it, in chapters 9-11, we encounter some of the most difficult theologizing ever put by pen to paper. The heart pumps, the lungs burn, and the knees buckle as we climb the spiraling steps of Paul’s argument about his fellow Jews’ rejection of Christ.  

The theology of these three chapters is intrinsically difficult, but the sociological issue behind them is difficult too. Honestly, when was the last time you—a Christian—thought theologically about the first-century Jewish rejection of Jesus? In Paul’s day, that was an important theological issue. Two millennia of Gentile Christianity have mostly pushed it out of our minds. But still we climb Paul’s steps anyway, one at a time. 

More than once, I have grown frustrated with Romans 9-11. I haven’t known what to write. Sometimes, I have wanted to give up, skip the entire section, and move directly to Romans 12-16, which are very practical in orientation. But Bible reading—like stair-climbing—is a discipline. You have to take the steps as they are, not as you want them to be.  We might wish that Paul would skip directly from Romans 8.39’s assertion that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” to Romans 12.1’s conclusion, “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” But that’s not the way Paul built the staircase. And anyway, how could we ever reach the top by skipping the middle of the climb? 

When I reached the top of the Oleviste Church tower, the panoramic view of Tallinn’s old town made the climbing worth every palpitation, wheeze, and cramp. If you ever get the chance, climb the tower. Tallinn is beautiful. 

So is God, only more so. We do the hard work of theologizing so that we get a better sense of who God is. Romans 9-11 teaches us, in essence, that God is faithful even to the faithless, whether Jew or Gentile. “God has bound all men over to disobedience,” Paul writes in Romans 11.32, “so that he may have mercy on them all.” And when we get that breathtaking view of God’s universal mercy, all we can do, like Paul, is excitedly exclaim: 

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"    

"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"    

For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

 If your theology of God doesn’t result in heart-pumping, lung-burning, knee-buckling worship, then buddy, you’re probably climbing the wrong stairs.

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I have made a pilgrimage to Israel several times. First-time Christian pilgrims inevitably come away with an epiphany and two questions. The epiphany: Jesus was here! He walked and talked then where we can walk and talk today. The questions: Why didn’t the Jews believe in him then? And, by extension, why don’t they believe in him now? Those are very good questions, and Romans 9-11 is Paul’s very good answer. 

Over the past several weeks, I have walked you verse by verse through Paul’s argument about the unbelief of his fellow Jews. In Romans 11.25-32, Paul weaves the complex strands of that argument into a conclusion. Here’s what he writes: 

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:  

"The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins."    

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. 

The first strand of Paul’s argument is expressed in the word hardening. “Israel has experienced a hardening.” Jews in Jesus’ day rejected Christ because, for whatever reason, they hardened their hearts against him. Of course, this is not a uniquely Jewish failing by any means. All of us—Jew or Gentile—have hardened our hearts against God. That’s why he sent his Son into the world to save us. Our hearts may be hard toward God, but his heart toward us is not. 

And Israel’s unbelief had good results for us Gentiles. That’s the second strand of Paul’s argument: The good news of salvation began to spread among the Gentiles because of Jewish unbelief. In God’s way of doing things—and he never wastes even bad experiences—our belief in Christ is possible because of Jewish unbelief. You and I are part of “the full number of the Gentiles” Paul wrote about.  

But God is still not done with Israel. That’s the third strand: “All Israel will be saved.” Paul prophetically foresaw a day when modern-day Jews would come to Christ in droves. You see, God doesn’t give up on his prodigal children. “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” What are those gifts? What is that call? To “have mercy on them all.” 

Is your heart hard toward God? Then soften it up. Only a soft heart can receive God’s grace.

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What is God like? First John 4.8 says, in the context of encouraging Christians to love one another, “God is love.” But Hebrews 12.29 says, in the context of warning Christians about divine judgment, “God is a consuming fire.” Is God love or fire? Why not both! I thought about the dual nature of God’s character when I read Romans 11.22-24: 

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

In their original context, these verses warn Gentile Christians not to get uppity about their salvation. The gospel came to them because of Israel’s belief. Using a horticultural image, Paul says that Israel was “cut off” from God like a branch from a tree. If Israel would believe, they would be “grafted” back in. And if Israel could be cut off, so could the Gentiles. The only way to remain a branch of God’s tree is to “continue in his kindness” through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Cutting off is an act of judgment. A gardener prunes dead and unproductive branches. By the same token, grafting onto is an act of love. It improves the tree, the branch, or both by introducing new life. A good gardener either cuts off or grafts onto, depending on the state of the branches. 

So does a good God. Persistent unbelief and obstinate disobedience occasion God’s judgment. God’s sternness reveals itself in his refusal to tolerate our sin. But honest faith and humble obedience prompt his mercy. His kindness shows itself in his desire to bring us sinners back into fellowship with him. 

Unfortunately, for some reason, we have a difficult time keeping love and judgment in proper balance, at least when it comes to God. Christians make equal but opposite mistakes about God. Some focus on his judgment against personal unrighteousness and social injustice, but they fail to leave room for spiritual turnarounds. Others focus on his love for prodigals but fail to mention that God’s grace results in (and requires) holiness, both in the individual and in society. 

Of course anyone who is a parent knows that childrearing requires both sternness and kindness. Combining them is the only way to raise good kids. Everyday, a parent must love the disobedient child but hate the child’s disobedience. Why can’t we see that our Heavenly Father acts the same way toward us? 

So, as Paul writes, “Consider…the kindness and sternness of God.” Not either/or, but both/and. And then do everything you can to continue in his kindness.

P.S. This past Sunday, I spoke to my Sunday school class about "The Books of God," based on Psalm 19. If you'd like to listen to my message, go here.

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—–

On Monday, August 21 of this year, my family and I visited the Stutthof Concentration Camp, which is situated in the forests near Gdansk, Poland. Construction on the camp began on September 2, 1939, the second day of World War II. (The war, in fact, began when Nazi troops overran Gdansk.) At first, Poles who opposed the Nazi regime were incarcerated there. Then Jews, Russians, and others who ran afoul of the Nazi’s found themselves unjustly imprisoned there. Stutthof’s gallows, gas chamber, and crematorium mark it as a place of execution. Tens of thousands died there.

I thought about my visit to Stutthof when I read Romans 11.17-21. Let’s read the passage first, then I’ll explain why it reminded me of Stutthof.

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

In this passage, Paul is speaking to Gentile Christians. Using a horticultural image, he says that Gentiles are “a wild olive shoot” that has been “grafted” onto the “olive root” of God's promises to save the world. Israel is "the natural branches," that is, the first recipients of these promises. Gentiles have been grafted onto the root, in part, because Israel rejected Jesus Christ. As Paul writes, “[Israel] was broken off because of unbelief, and you [Gentiles] stand by faith.” Therefore, he concludes, “Do not be arrogant.”

It is arrogance that connects Romans 11.17-21 and Stutthof, for me at any rate. Because of an irrational and immoral racial pride, Nazi Germany felt that it could abuse “inferior races” by incarcerating and executing them at places like Stutthof. The Jews received the worse treatment, but Poles, Russians, Slavs, and Gypsies also felt the end of the Nazi whip.

Now, Nazi ideology was not biblically based by any stretch of the imagination. But Nazi propagandists distorted and misused biblical passages to make their case for Jewish inferiority. Hadn’t the Jews rejected Christ? Hadn’t they called for his crucifixion? Didn’t they reject Christianity to this very day? If so, they must be especially devious and dangerous. And so, they must be destroyed.

Romans 11.17-21 refutes this evil conclusion. The nourishing root of Christianity is God's numerous promises of salvation. The first promises were made to Abraham and his descendants. To accept Christ is to be grafted onto this root, which includes the Jews. Reject the Jews and you reject the root, which means rejecting Christ.

In the end, Romans 11.17-21 calls for racial humility. No group is racially superior (or inferior) to another. Instead, all individuals are sinners who need to receive God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Listen to TDW: http://georgepwood.com/mp3s/romans_11_11-16.mp3

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Can bad choices nonetheless have good results?

If I read Romans 11.11-16 correctly, the answer to that question is yes. Throughout Romans 9-11, Paul has been reflecting on Israel’s bad choice in rejecting Jesus Christ. Although Christ fulfilled all of God’s promises to them, many in Israel nevertheless rejected him in his own day. This seems at first glance to be a failure in God’s plan. But Paul sees the matter differently.

Here’s what he writes:

“Again I ask: Did they [that is, Israel] stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

“I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.”

Notice several things:

First, Paul is quite clear that Israel’s rejection of Jesus Christ is a mistake. He describes it using various negative terms: “stumble,” “fall,” and “transgression.” In our day and age, we tend to think that all religious choices are more or less equal, that they are mere preferences. I prefer Christianity. Others prefer Buddhism. Still others atheism. Who’s to say which preference is correct? Paul would be incredulous at our spiritual relativism. For him, it’s Christ or nothing. And he is, of course, correct. The world’s various religions and philosophies make contradictory truth claims. One may be right, or all may be wrong. But in terms of simple logic, not all can be right.

Second, according to Paul, Israel’s bad choice had good consequences for us Gentiles. When Israel closed the door on Jesus, he simply opened another door to the Gentiles. Not every bad choice has such a good consequence, but in God’s providence, some do.

Third, God isn’t finished with Israel yet. Regarding the Jews, Paul is a short-term pessimist and long-term optimist. In other words, regarding his own generation, Paul didn’t expect too much evangelistic success. But he firmly believed that that Gentile experience of God’s blessings would eventually bring Israel around to accepting Christ. That is what he means when speaks of “the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.” Elsewhere in the Bible, envy is a vice. In this context, however, it is a virtue, for it describes the deep-seated desire of the Jewish people to experience the blessings of salvation. And in the end, they will.